Man Fights Back After Robber Targets His Family’s Car in Golden Gate Park in SF

A smash and grab robbery in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park was caught on cell phone video after the victim prevented the suspect from driving off with his belongings by chasing him on foot.

The victim, Jason Andaya, was in Golden Gate Park for 10 minutes with his wife Natalie and son Jasper, 2, when the incident occurred. The family was on a road trip from Seattle, KTVU reported.

“I’m just wondering like what’s this guy doing on that side of our vehicle… he’s got no business there,” Andaya told the station.

The video, taken on Feb. 24 by SF resident Forrest Lanning, shows a man in a blue hoodie snatching a suitcase from the broken window of a parked SUV and dashing off to the other side of the street.

Andaya runs after the man to a getaway car driven by an accomplice and gets into a scuffle before the backpack, which was filled with his son’s clothes and toys, is dropped by the suspect.

Lanning recorded the incident around 1:08 p.m. in the area of Martin Luther King Drive and Kezar Drive and shared the video on Twitter.

“I saw this guy at the car and I thought he was just trying to open it, but then I saw him break the window and then I’m like, he’s doing one of those smash-and-grabs,” Lanning told CBS SF BayArea’s Betty Yu (@bett_yu). “And then he was going to run across the street and what I didn’t expect is the owner of that car, chased after him.”

Lanning managed to get the suspects’ Chevy Impala license plate, 5ZZN552.

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The San Francisco Police Department said it has no record of the incident. Andaya and his family called 911 but couldn’t stay to file a police report. They will do so once they return home.

“At this time, we’ve not located a police report matching the incident depicted in the Twitter post. It is possible that the victim did not file a report,” the department said in a statement.

An SFPD spokesperson added that robberies in the Richmond district have increased, but auto burglaries are down.

This is the second smash-and-grab Lanning has witnessed in Golden Gate Park in two years. Both times the victims had checked out of hotels and carried luggage in their vehicles.

Feature Image via @rabidmarmot

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